Rashad Hussain, US President Barack Obama''s new envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to aid a terror suspect Sami al-Arian in 2006.

An admission that contradicts earlier claims from the White House that the quotes had been mistakenly attributed to Hussain, he admitted on Friday that he once defended a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group.

His comments at the time were "ill conceived or not well formulated." said Hussain, named by Obama as an envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference.

After Sami al-Arian, a university professor, was charged in 2003 with heading U. S. operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in 2004, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quoted Hussain saying at a seminar on Muslim issues that al-Arian was the victim of "politically motivated persecutions."

Designated by the U. S. as a foreign terrorist group since 1997, Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid the group and was sentenced to more than four years in prison. (With Input from Agencies)